He refused to limit himself to just 140 characters on Twitter, where he quoted Mister Rogers on what he was told to do when bad things happen. The hopeful message has inspired thousands of retweets and favorites.

“Look for the helpers. You’ll always find people who are helping. — Fred Rogers, on what to do when scary things are on the news,” he wrote on Twitter.

He also refused to place blame. And, in a heartfelt missive posted on Facebook, the 44-year-old revisited his reaction to 9/11, writing he had “had it with humanity,” but went on to reveal his belief that good will always outweigh evil.

“I don’t know what’s going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem,” he writes. “One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.” Whichever the case, “the vast majority stands against that darkness,” he writes, comparing the drive to erase evil to the actions of “white blood cells attacking a virus.”

“So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance,” he concludes, “just look it in the eye and think ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’ ”

To read Oswalt’s full post, which has more than 100,000 responses and likes, go to Facebook.